Book : Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modelling for a Complex World (2000)

Summary

From the publisher:

Accelerating economic, technological, social, and environmental change challenge managers and policy makers to learn at increasing rates, while at the same time the complexity of the systems in which we live is growing.  Many of the problems we now face arise as unanticipated side effects of our own past actions.  All too often the policies we implement to solve important problems fail, make the problem worse, or create new problems.

Effective decision making and learning in a world of growing dynamic complexity requires us to become systems thinkers to expand the boundaries of our mental models and develop tools to understand how the structure of complex systems creates their behavior.

This book introduces you to system dynamics modeling for the analysis of policy and strategy, with a focus on business and public policy applications.  System dynamics is a perspective and set of conceptual tools that enable us to understand the structure and dynamics of complex systems.  System dynamics is also a rigorous modeling method that enables us to build formal computer simulations of complex systems and use them to design more effective policies and organizations.  Together, these tools allow us to create management flight simulators–microworlds where space and time can be compressed and slowed so we can experience the long-term side effects of decisions, speed learning, develop our understanding of complex systems, and design structures and strategies for greater success.

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Book : Industrial Dynamics (1992)

Summary

How do you design corporate structures and policies that are compatible with the growth objectives of your organization? This text addresses this crucial question and explains how managers’ actions shape the dynamic characteristics of a broad range of organizations. A reprint of the original text, Industrial Dynamics also contains numerous two-color graphs to help illustrate the concepts.

Here is the book that started the study of system dynamics! This classic work is for anyone in management, whether a student or seasoned professional. Forrester looks at a company as a dynamic system of interacting elements, gives a methodology on how to model them, and shows through simulation how the company will be affected by changes. The book covers industrial systems, managerial uses of industrial dynamics, models, systems of equations, flow diagrams, policies and decisions, production-distribution systems, and much more! If you’re interested in ithink, this book is an essential for your library. If you use Optima !iThink, this book will give you good advice on modeling your corporation.

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Book : Modelling for Learning Organisations (2000)

Summary

Test policies, discover flaws, and find hidden leverage points. System simulation allows you to predict the outcome of current and future situations on the whole system by testing different scenarios.

Conventional wisdom says that we can learn from our errors, but errors in the business world can be prohibitively costly. To truly understand how complex business organizations function requires different tools than most managers have been given. Yet managers need methods to understand how their organization works in order to test policies, discover flaws in thinking, and find the hidden leverage points within the complex systems they manage. Through a system simulation, the dynamics of the whole system, not just the individual parts, becomes apparent. The outcome of current and future situations becomes possible to predict and with this information, managers can focus on the changes that need to be made.

The distinguished contributors to Modeling for Learning Organizations include Jay W. Forrester, Peter Senge, and Arie De Geus. You will learn about leading applications such as:<

• Shell’s work on modeling the oil producers.
• The Management Flight Simulator, a computer-based case learning environment pioneered by John Sterman and others at MIT
• The landmark Claims Learning Laboratory at Hanover Insurance companies.

For managers, professionals, academicians, and everyone who recognizes the profound implications of modeling, this book is an excellent resource. It offers a broad understanding of the modeling process, discusses a multitude of case studies, and provides a review of the most recent simulation software.

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Book : Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager’s Guide to Applying Systems (2002)

Summary

From the publisher:

Systems thinking can help you tame the complexity of real world problems by providing a structured way of balancing a broad, overall view with the selection of the right level of detail, truly allowing you to see the forest for the trees.

Only by taking a broad view can we avoid the twin dangers of a silo mentality - in which a fix ‘here’ simply shifts the problem to ‘there’ - and organisational myopia - in which a fix ‘now’ gives rise to a much bigger problem to fix ‘then’.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees will give you all the tools and techniques you need, with many practical examples as diverse as managing a busy back office, negotiating an outsourcing deal and formulating business strategy.

Dennis Sherwood was for twelve years a consulting partner with Coopers & Lybrand and was subsequently an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in London, a partner in Bossard Consultants, and Vice President of SRI Consulting. Educated at the universities of Cambridge, Yale and California, and a Sloan Fellow, with Distinction, of the London Business School, he is now the Managing Director of Organica Consulting which specialised in building competitive advantage through innovation whose clients include Thames Water, Nestle, National Grid, Pearson TV, The Defence Evaluation & Research Agency, Wedgewood, and Yorkshire Electricity. He is a is well-known on the conference circuit and is the author of five previous books including Smart Things to Know About Innovation and Unlock Your Mind.

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Book : Systems Engineering: An Approach to Information-Based Design (1996)

Summary

A tentative theory and framework for systems engineering, which accounts for all phases in the life cycle of a product or service such that rational choices can be make concerning design options even when uncertainty and risk are high. Proposes a definition for the emerging field.

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Book : Systems: Concepts, Methodologies and Applications (1990)

Summary

From the Publisher:

The author presents the results of his own experience in using systems ideas, assembles a coherent account of their development and application, and examines the relationship of particular systems methodologies and concepts to the nature of the problems encountered.

It emphasizes problem solving and surveys the types of modeling languages appropriate to various parts of a problem spectrum in systems design. Stresses the development of a modeling language and its applications, particularly to the (soft) less well-defined/ill-structured problems, which often require a non-mathematical language based on the concept of a human activity system.

Specific problems in actual situations are discussed, including the design of a services complex, services systems and an operational system, as are the analysis of business information and role analysis.

There is also a study of management control that includes discussion of concepts that illustrate and emphasize the distinction made between management and process control. Features exercises that will help develop skills in picture building and problem solving.

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Course : T553_1 Systems Modelling (1999)

Summary

Provided by The Open University under their OpenLearn website as a free study units with a discussion forum. Study independently at your own pace or join a group and use the free learning tools to work with others.

Time: 4 hours

Level: Introductory

From the Open University:

Maps and plans, architects and engineers, drawings, graphs and tables: all are models we use in everyday life. This unit will introduce you to the modelling process enabling you to recognise that systems models may be used in different ways as part of a process for: improving understanding of a situation; identifying problems or formulating opportunities and supporting decision making.

Learning Outcomes

After working through these materials you should be able to:

• describe and use a general classification of models;
• outline and discuss the process of systems modelling, where models are used as part of a systemic approach to a range of different situations;
• recognise that systems models may be used in different ways as part of a process for: improving understanding of a situation; identifying problems or formulating opportunities; supporting decision making.

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Book : The Art of Systems Architecting, Third Edition (2009)

Summary

From the publisher:

Features

• Discusses a heuristics-based approach that provides an organized attack on very ill-structured engineering problems
• Includes heuristics and case studies that address critical market segments, such as builder-architected systems, software-systems, and systems-of-systems
• Examines architecture as more than a set of diagrams and documents, but as a set of decisions that either drive a system to success or doom it to failure
• Provides methods for integrating business strategy with technical architectural decision making
• Covers the foundations of systems architecting, the general roots of the practices, and practitioner guidance

Summary

If engineering is the art and science of technical problem solving, systems architecting happens when you don’t yet know what the problem is. The third edition of a highly respected bestseller, The Art of Systems Architecting provides in-depth coverage of the least understood part of systems design: moving from a vague concept and limited resources to a satisfactory and feasible system concept and an executable program. The book provides a practical, heuristic approach to the “art” of systems architecting. It provides methods for embracing, and then taming, the growing complexity of modern systems.

New in the Third Edition:

• Five major case studies illustrating successful and unsuccessful practices
• Information on architecture frameworks as standards for architecture descriptions
• New methods for integrating business strategy and architecture and the role of architecture as the technical embodiment of strategy
• Integration of process guidance for organizing and managing architecture projects
• Updates to the rapidly changing fields of software and systems-of-systems architecture
• Organization of heuristics around a simple and practical process model

A Practical Heuristic Approach to the Art of Systems Architecting

Extensively rewritten to reflect the latest developments, the text explains how to create a system from scratch, presenting invention/design rules together with clear explanations of how to use them. The author supplies practical guidelines for avoiding common systematic failures while implementing new mandates. He uses a heuristics-based approach that provides an organized attack on very ill-structured engineering problems. Examining architecture as more than a set of diagrams and documents, but as a set of decisions that either drive a system to success or doom it to failure, the book provide methods for integrating business strategy with technical architectural decision making.

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Book : The Engineering Design of Systems: Models and Methods (2000)

Summary

From the publisher:

A basic text for courses that involve the use of models and methods in the engineering design of systems, this book features topics concerning the systems engineering process and the modelling and design fundamentals needed to support this process. Industry uses many of the methods and models discussed in this book, but seldom in the integrated manner presented here.

Taking the approach that performing systems engineering activities involves modelling of many different types, this text aims to enable students to learn by experimenting with such modelling techniques. A number of generally understood systems are used to convey these modelling concepts and test the students’ ability to create realistic models.

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Book : UML for Systems Engineering (2001)

Summary

From the publisher:

This book is based on a very successful IEE course which is in turn based on many years research into modelling and the Unified Modelling Language (UML) by the author.

The UML is the new industry standard for modelling software-intensive systems and this book looks at several applications where the UML can be used as part of a generic approach to aid many kinds of problem solving and information modelling. These include: modelling standards, processes and procedures, requirements engineering, implementation of processes, assessment of tools, defining a quality system, lifecycles and lifecycle models and software.

The book is intended to bring UML to the wider audience of systems engineers, and its application to real examples for non-software applications; a problem which is widely acknowledged in other texts, but rarely addressed.

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